Family
by strangeJenny
Summary: What if Nikita was pregnant when the team find out that Michael has a son in England? What if she doesn't tell him and raises the baby in secret?


Chapter 1

Originally when Michel had left she had fallen to pieces quite a bit. He had been such a prominent figure in her life for over half a decade, and then he was just gone. Not dead, just in another country, just across the Atlantic Ocean. It is not as if she could blame him, he had a son, and he had a right to be part of his child's life. She had kept the pregnancy from him, for the few days after meeting the little boy herself. It wasn't as if she had noticed it at the time, she hadn't been ill or even begun really showing. The one thing just about every woman keeps track of and she had missed it. There were other things going on in her life, big things. Brining down Division, locating the Black Boxes, there had been a lot of drama in her life. When she went to the doctors, they were quite surprised at how far along she had gotten, without noticing. She was half way through the gestation by the time she visited them for the first time. Having a good healthy diet and exercise has always made her thin; the little life growing inside of her hadn't taken up much room. When Michael left there was nothing to be seen, so there was no reason to blame him for leaving when she needed him. But she was Nikita Mears, when had she ever needed anyone? She had picked herself up. Her next mission in life was growing inside of her; it needed her and her protection. One of the first things she needed to do was stop fighting. The baby had done well to hang on this long with the number of blows she took to the stomach while fighting, the least she could do was limit those occasions.

Wearing clothes that disguised her small bump was easy seeing as she could pull-off just about any attire in public. If Alex noticed the small changes in her friend's dress-sense, then she never commented; and she had other things going on in her life too, like that Navy Seal, Sean… Birkhoff was in the digital hacking world and enjoying himself, he had money and was able to buy whatever he wanted. Division had given him so much that he now saw himself as above the law. He knew that Nikki was sad about the absence of Michael, but pleased that she had dug herself out of the hole that Mikey had left behind. She was getting on with her life, less dangerous missions, but he didn't mind that, she was safe so he was happy.

Then she had left. Not suddenly in the night or anything. Actually it was a little over time, her belongings started to slowly disappear from the house she shared with Birkhoff. When she left she said that the house had too many memories of _him_ and that she needed time to herself. It was true, or at least partly true, she did need her own space; but that was for a specific reason, a reason that she hadn't told Nerd about. Anyway she knew where she was going, like the first place she had used as a base; she had another Whitfield property lined up that she had omitted from the Division records. Nikita was good at planning her life, in the early days of going up against Division; she had always been at least three steps ahead of them.

When she went into labour she drove herself to a private hospital, she was well cared for and they were discrete about names (if you could pay). Although they did have one rule that there was no getting around. In order to check-out there had to be another adult family member present. Now, Nikita had no family, she grew up in foster families. The one person she could think of was Owen Elliot; he was the closest she had. Alex was like a sister, but she had a tracking implant, she wanted her baby kept safe. Division would question why one of their operatives visited a private hospital, when they had highly skilled physicians under their employ. On the phone she was brief, simply telling him that she needed him and the address of the hospital. News of a baby was not something anybody said over the telephone.

Owen had entered the reception of the hospital with no idea as to the condition that Nikita would be in. To him, for her to even be in a hospital it must be serious, if even someone of her skill was unable to patch herself up. He owed Nikita so much, she had done a lot for him, she had given him a purpose in his life again, and forgiven him for the terrible sin he had committed against her. Coming to the hospital he had braced himself for something as severe as a car accident, leaving her immobile when the ambulance arrived. So many scenarios were going through his head. He didn't even know what name she was here under, how was he supposed to find her. He had gone up to the front desk at reception and asked if there was a patient under the name Nikita. It was lucky that the nurse heard him; she had been on duty that morning when Nikita had mentioned that she was going to have a visitor.

"Are you Owen?" she had asked him. He had looked surprised to be named so openly like that. When he had nodded, her face lit up in a welcoming smile, "I can take you to her room, if you'd like?" This hospital had a good record of customer satisfaction, and only part of that was to do with their discretion, it was also the rapport developed on a person to person basis. "She has been waiting for you to pick her up for a few days now, but we understand that you were away on business."

The nurse was quite a chatty person, a trait that some people could find irritating, but on that day, Owen was soaking up as much information as he could about how his friend was doing. The fact that she had called him, suggested her being conscious and aware. That it had now been a few days since she was apparently coherent, was a good sign, less time spent unconscious means shorter recovery time needed. He was also getting a kind of backstory to the characters he and Nikita were playing in this hospital. "I got here as soon as I could," replied Owen, which was true, and also fit into his interpretation of the story.

After exiting the elevator, then they headed down a corridor; the nurse knocked on the door and poked her head in, "You've got a visitor!" She announced in a rather cheery voice, after seeing Nikita nod, she opened the door for Owen, "I'll just leave you guys to it then, goodbye!" she said closing the door behind herself.

As soon as Owen had entered the room he did an initial sweep for danger or cameras, finding none he then focused on Nikita. He assessed her for any sign of injury or distress; again he found no obvious sign, other than a little tiredness, "How are you?"

Nikita sat on the side of her bed, fully clothed in jeans and a loose-fitted jumper. "Hello Owen, I'm fine, yourself?" she asked with a smile. At his nod, she continued, "You must have questions about why I have called here. I'm sorry to have misled you in any way, but I do need you here."

Owen nodded, "You are not injured?" his statement turning into a question, confusion plain on his face.

"You see you are the closest thing I have to family…" she trailed off, and he frowned, thinking about Alex. He was flattered to be so high up her list of friends to be thought of as family. "The staff here, they won't check me out without a family member to take care of me. All I could think about was you Owen," she looked up at him with hope in her eyes. Building up the courage inside of her for the next bit of news, the big secret she had kept from everybody. She took a deep breath, and just as she opened her mouth to tell him, there was a sound from across the room.

Owen frowned, that noise… he had heard that noise before… _but where?_

"Please don't freak-out Owen" said Nikita almost wincing while she pleaded with him. She got off of the bed and went around to the other side. There was some kind of box; he had barely glanced at it earlier, seeing no obvious threat. Nikita reached down into the box, and lifted something back out. On seeing what she was holding, the little puzzle pieces began to slot themselves together. The box wasn't a box, it was a cot. Her lack of injuries was because she hadn't been injured when she came here, she hadn't been ill either; she had most likely been in labour. All the pieces now showed something that was glaringly obvious, in her arms Nikita held a baby. Her baby, judging by the skin colour of the baby, how similar it was to Nikita's and the love that shone out of her face.

"Okay then…" was Owen's eloquent response to this surprising news, after a pause, "Congratulations!" after all that was the normally socially appropriate response to finding out that a friend has had a baby, right?

Nikita smiled, he wasn't freaking out; this was going good. She turned the baby's face towards Owen, "Baby, meet my very dear friend Owen. Owen, meet Baby?" She introduced them, Owen smiled and stroked a finger down the baby's cheek. It was the most perfect, intimate moment for a first meeting.

"Hello Baby," said Owen, "is it not a bit of a strange name for a person, "Baby"?" he asked quietly with a slight quirk to the side of his mouth.

Seeing Owen smile was a thing Nikita realised that she had really missed. She tried to frown at him but couldn't keep the smile from her face, "I didn't have a name ready," she said defensively. "And anyway you can in no way say that the name of Baby doesn't at least suit for now?"

"Is this the reason that they wouldn't check you out? They don't like the idea of single moms?" Owen questioned her.

"I have the money to pay them, so it isn't that. They know how much hard work a new baby can be and they wanted to make sure that there was a family unit able to provide that. I told them that you were my partner; they don't require any kind of certificate as proof, only for that person to turn up. And anyway marriage isn't as socially required as it once was." Nikita raised her eyebrow at him in question, asking what he thought of it all.

"Well I suppose Alex couldn't come, what with her tracking implant and all, would raise unwanted questions. We have been on several successful missions together, so we are _kinda_ partners already, so it wasn't really a lie, you just left it open to their interpretation." Nikita wasn't sure if she had ever heard him say so much at one time before. It was nice to know that they thought on the same wavelength though. "Do you want to check-out now?" he asked.

Nikita smiled and nodded, "If you don't mind?" she asked.

"What name have you got yourself under? What do I sign with?" he asked carrying her suitcase as they walked toward the elevator.

"Sign with your own name, I'm here as myself. They keep written records, which are only digitised at the end of the year. They are very discrete with names." She explained while they stood in the lift on their way down to reception. Owen holding Nikita's overnight bag, Nikita holding the baby. This was it, she was finally leaving this place to start her new life with her little one.


End file.
